Moonlight Water

by Win Blevins

  “But the polygamy,” Red stammered.

  She chuckled. “A few plural marriages among the more prosperous Mormons when most of my poor Navajo uncles and grandfathers had more than one wife? Really.”

  She looked at Red and waited. At last her expression changed. “All right, what else? Out with it.”

  “The silly stories, the dumb theology.”

  “Oh, you.” She shook her head. “At my age I should cease to be surprised. If you look at those stories literally, they’re silly. If you seek the deeper truth in them, they will comfort your heart. The same is true of Bible stories, and the old stories of the Navajos, and the stories of the Greek, Norse, and Hindu gods. In the years I taught school, I taught all the stories this way. One bishop tried to correct my thinking. I told him to go home and grow up.

  “The Navajo way is beautiful. It teaches harmony with the self, the family, the community, the earth. The Christian ways are beautiful, all of them, including Mormon. They teach people to love each other. If I were pushed, I might admit to preferring the Navajo, if only because they were woven into the fabric of my soul at an early age. However, Winsonfred and the local bishop walk separate paths up a single mountain, and they go toward the one summit.”

  Red felt properly chastised, and enlightened. Clarita pinched the dead-out end of the joint, put it in a Baggie, and dropped it in her purse.

  A knock on the driver’s-side window made Red jump. It was Winsonfred, and Zahnie stood next to him sporting the world’s biggest grin.

  “Time to play,” she said.

  She was spectacular. A scoop-necked velveteen blouse of pale, shimmery green topped a full purple skirt. Her glossy black hair was held back on the side by twin barrettes, each with fire opals. Her wrists flashed silver bracelets with gleaming topaz and onyx stones. Her feet were shod in Navajo moccasins, tops the color of the red rock of the canyons and soles bright white. Her neck was ornamented with a heavy silver necklace that showed off a huge and handsome oval of turquoise, with lovely meanderings of ochre through the blue.

  When she saw him looking at it, she caressed it with a finger and said, “It’s a Carico Lake stone.”

  “You’re a vision,” he blurted.

  “You ready?” Her smile was luminous.

  “Absolutely.”

  The fair was in full swing. The four of them sauntered slowly around the grounds. Booths were set up everywhere, jury-rigged affairs of plywood. Fortunately for Red’s belly, they sold food. Fry bread here, mutton stew there, cans of soda pop.

  “Over at Shiprock Fair,” Zahnie said, “things are different.”

  “There’s more bilaganna things at Shiprock,” Winsonfred said, “like cotton candy, hot dogs, hamburgers, stuff like that.”

  “Bilaganna just means ‘white man,’” explained Zahnie. “There’s no offense in it.”

  Clarita stooped to pat a kid on the head and spoke to him in Navajo. The kid looked puzzled. She didn’t resort to English but just strolled on.

  “There’s a story about that word, bilaganna,” Clarita said with a wide smile, a queen getting risqué. Originally, it meant ‘those who fight with their penises.’”

  “It was the first white men in here,” Zahnie put in. “They took Navajo women.”

  “Of course,” said Winsonfred. He looked Zahnie up and down. “Who can blame them?”

  Clarita’s eyes sparkled. Red couldn’t keep his eyes off Zahnie.

  They zigzagged on. Winsonfred acted a little tired, clutching one of Red’s forearms. The Ancient One waved vaguely toward the center area with his free hand. “The main thing here,” he said, “it’s horse races. We already had three or four, but I didn’t wake you. You’d just lose your money.”

  Zahnie said, “He’s bragging. Winsonfred always wins. Show us your wad, old man.”

  Winsonfred rummaged in a pocket of his shapeless pants and after a long while pulled out a roll as thick as a baseball. He flicked the edges—no ones in it, just fives, tens, and twenties. He touched the roll to his head. “It’s experience. Horseflesh is experience. But you’ll like the next two races, coming right up.” When he looked into Red’s eyes now, his expression was almost flirtatious. “And I intend to compete myself!”

  Zahnie and Clarita tittered.

  Clinging to Red’s arm, Winsonfred almost pushed them toward the starting line. When he let go and lined up with the other old men, though, he looked independent. There were maybe twenty men, and most looked a lot less fit than Winsonfred.

  Red hustled back to Zahnie and the others.

  The finish line was a pile, looked like clothing. The starting gun sounded. The geezers did their paddety-pad to the pile.

  Winsonfred seized what looked like a 44 E-cup bra and modeled it. The cups perched in his armpits. He dipped into the pile and held up some pink panties, dangling from one finger and big enough to fit a water barrel. He stepped into them and pulled them up. They formed a moat around his waist and puddled between his knees. He preened for the audience, and everyone roared and whistled.

  Red saw now that some old men were ahead of Winsonfred. Several were pulling up full skirts, and one had his head buried in a pullover blouse.

  One geezer shoved the buried head, and the body toppled.

  Winsonfred grabbed the hem of a skirt and pulled it down.

  Two of the old men pulled a guy’s skirt up over his head and started knotting it there.

  Things degenerated fast. Instead of trying to win, Winsonfred had a good time hog-tying a man with a giant pair of panty hose.

  Eventually a man got fully cross-dressed and hobbled back across the starting line, winning the prize. Red laughed like an idiot, but he decided never to tell anyone all the details, bearing yet some sense of the dignity of his sex.

  And all this hosteen hop for the grand prize of a sack of groceries! Red thought for that performance the old guy should have won a trip around the world.

  * * *

  Just then Clarita touched Zahnie’s arm gently and pointed with her lips. Zahnie said, practically in Red’s ear, “Oh, shit!”

  Red could get tired of “oh, shit” really quick.

  Red followed Zahnie’s eyes, and there loomed Charlie Lyman. Out of place and out of uniform, he was extravagantly western, from black ten-gallon hat to snap-down mother-of-pearl buttons.

  “He here to roust us?”

  “The reservation is not within his jurisdiction,” enunciated Clarita.

  “He’s cruising for drunk women,” said Zahnie. “That’s what predators do, hunt.”

  What Charlie Lyman searchlighted at that moment was them. He cruised over like an eighteen-wheeler, clumsy and magisterial and arrogant all at once. He gave Red the cop look, and Red gave him a screw-you look back. It was Zahnie Charlie spoke to.

  “We’re treating Tony like any other jailbird,” he said. “Who’s next?”

  “You,” said Zahnie.

  That earned her a good, solid cop glare.

  Red offered, “You got a vein in your temple turns the color of eggplant when you get mad. Cute.”

  Zahnie laughed.

  “Where are you staying in Moonlight Water, her bed?”

  “Who could resist her?”

  Zahnie arced her hands over her head and did a show-off spin.

  Charlie flashed a look at Zahnie that was truly ugly. “You deserve to get your ass kicked,” he said with a snarl.

  Suddenly Clarita spoke. “Charles Lyman, you’re a bad man. Even in the fifth grade you were rotten.”

  Charlie’s smile turned rictus. “You’re a wonder, Miz Shumway.”

  “Begay-Shumway,” Clarita said softly.

  Charlie fixed his eyes back on Red. “Keep an eye out. The Redrock County jail ain’t got the amenities of the Granary.” He winked and strode off.

  “Asshole,” said Zahnie.

  Winsonfred creaked up to them just then. Just like he’d heard everything, he said, “Phoo. That Lyman boy is not a problem. Let’
s eat!”

  This from the guy who never ate.

  23

  THE PAST LEAPS UP TO BITE YOU

  Don’t use your own name. Your ears will fall off.

  —Navajo saying

  “Leeja’s not here,” said Zahnie.

  Red took a moment to register the name—Zahnie’s sister, the one with the hanky-panky daughters.

  “A big bird told me where she is,” said Winsonfred with a wink. He took Red’s arm and, with his distinctive way of leaning and leading at once, guided everyone across the racetrack, between some chiddies, toward where a canvas shade was stretched over the back end of a pickup. There was a big pot simmering on a camp stove on the tailgate. Off to the side a couple of teenage girls acted out adolescent gloom, and two younger boys played with Hot Wheels. Under the tailgate a man was passed out. At a Dutch oven full of oil a woman was making fry bread. She was thirty pounds heavier than Zahnie but with almost the same face.

  She turned toward them and shrieked with joy. “Hey, Grandpa, Zahnie, Clarita. Where’s Tony?”

  The news sobered her. Then her eyes fixed on Red and she gave a big grin. She looked from Zahnie to Red to Zahnie to Red, her eyes getting merrier with every glance. “What kinda joke is this?” Eyes back and forth. “You’ve come off your everlasting mad, right, Sis?” Eyes back and forth. Her wide mouth wiggled, her lips like cartoon worms. “No, it’s your revenge. Finally.”

  Zahnie simply looked puzzled.

  “Come on—tell me, Zahnie!”

  “What are you talking about?” Zahnie said stiffly.

  Even the teenage girls were paying attention now. Leeja threw her arms up in the air, bent from the waist, and slapped her thighs. “I’ll be damned,” she said, “this is…” She hooted, and then hooted some more.

  Clarita truly looked at Red with deep interest, a vessel that had hoisted sail in a very personal part of her universe.

  Zahnie’s color was rising. “What the hell are you going on about?” The straight sister calling the loose-goose sister on the carpet.

  “Oh, come on. If you’re gonna pull this, don’t play the innocent.”

  “Pull what?”

  Red couldn’t guess either, but he was nervous.

  Leeja waggled her generous upper body, like the fun of it was busting out of her. She flabbered her lips. The teenagers were grinning at Mom’s antics now.

  “The first man you ever bring home, Roqui, I steal, or that’s the way you see it.” Leeja waved an arm theatrically in the direction of the man under the tailgate. “This prize, this charmer, who wouldn’t want him?”

  She kicked Roqui in the sole of his cowboy boot, but he didn’t stir. “When you shoulda thanked me for taking this loser off your hands.”

  She stared at the two of them, grinning, practically quivering with hilarity. “And the second you bring home is my old heartthrob Rob Roy.”

  Busted!

  Leeja danced over to Red–Robbie–Rob Roy, put an arm around his waist, and leaned her head and torso way back, like the two were auditioning for the cover of a paperback romance. “Oh, heartthrob, I beg you, take me away from all this!” She stood up and waved a circle around the whole scene, kids, Roqui, the rest of her family.

  “Rob Roy?” Zahnie said in Red’s face. “I knew, goddamn you! Goddamn you!” Her face was a dust devil of fury.

  Clarita turned and smiled at Zahnie, then at Leeja, then at Red as only a great lady can smile, and pronounced, “We will have stew and fry bread and several of you will explain all this. I’m having a very fine time.”

  * * *

  They sat around two folding tables and ate off paper plates. The teenagers, who’d been introduced as the wayward boaters Sallyfene and Wandafene, were interested now, like they were unfolding a National Enquirer story. Red was introduced to the boys, who were named Devin and Dino. The mutton stew was fatty, but the conversation was delectable.

  “Tell us who you truly are, Mr. Red–Rob Roy,” said Clarita.

  Truly? Okay.

  “All of the above.”

  “Insufficient,” said Clarita.

  “I am a middle-aged man lost at sea after jumping off the ship of his life. That ship was a band, the Elegant Demons, and I was the lead guitarist, keyboard player, and dancing maniac, stage name Rob Roy.”

  Clarita asked a question of Zahnie and Leeja with her eyebrow.

  “The best cosmic band ever to come out of the Bay Area, next to the Grateful Dead,” said Leeja.

  Sallyfene and Wandafene squealed.

  “But way after the Dead,” said Zahnie.

  “They had cuter guys, though,” added Leeja. “I had a big crush on Kell Stone.”

  “Our lead singer,” Red said to Clarita, hoping to imply that it’s a big step down from lead singer to keyboard player.

  “My room,” Leeja said, “was papered with posters of you guys.”

  “Our room,” said Zahnie.

  With the other eyebrow Clarita Ping-Ponged the inquiry to Leeja.

  “The band did this big tour, came to Albuquerque.”

  “The Lick-Free tour.” Red remembered it well. The band went to a lot of towns he’d never seen, like Albuquerque, and at that time hoped never to see again.

  “I scammed tickets,” Leeja plunged onward. “It was a g-r-e-a-t concert”—her eyes flashed just how great—“and like every other teenage girl in New Mexico, I wanted to meet Kell. Somebody knew what hotel they were staying at, I forget the name. Zahnie and I went down there—”

  “Leeja dragged me—”

  “Oh, poor, helpless older sister. I gave a bell guy twenty bucks to tell us what room Kell was in. Twenty dollars, you have no idea how much money that was to a fifteen-year-old Navajo, and how wide I had to waggle my ass to persuade that guy. So.” She looked at Zahnie with a grand conspirator’s smile but got no smile back. “We went upstairs. To the floor, I mean. We had to hang out by the elevators for a while, thanks to Little Miss Chickenshit—”

  Zahnie stuck out her tongue at Leeja.

  “Finally, I got up the nerve, walked down the hall alone, and knocked.”

  She looked straight at Red with both a twinkle and an accusation.

  “You came to the door. Wrong guy, not Kell, but it wasn’t the face I noticed first. You were naked, and what, well, caught my eye was your erection. It looked like a baseball bat, cocked and ready to swing. To a fifteen-year-old who’d never seen one before, not in the flesh, it was…” She grimaced and waved her arms defensively.

  Clarita gave the universe a delighted whoop.

  Yeah, Red remembered doing things like that in those days, when he was tripping, tired, drunk, and toured-out.

  He looked shamefaced at Zahnie. She cast her eyes down, and then flushed when she realized she was looking at his lap. Red managed an inward smile at seeing her red skin blush.

  “Without even trying to cover up, you mumbled something about expecting someone else. I shrieked and ran. Ran all the way down the hotel stairs, didn’t even wait for the elevator. After that, I spent a lot of time looking at your face on those posters, not just Kell’s.”

  “God, Leeja,” mumbled Zahnie. Humiliation squirmed in her.

  “However, as you see, I’m happily married—behold the white knight, father of my children and Zahnie’s son, sleeping it off under the truck. My sister, though, is eminently available.”

  Leeja giggled maliciously, and Zahnie turned a deeper red.

  “That lovely act of your forever mad? Don’t you think it’s time to let go of it?”

  Zahnie looked at her sister coldly. “What act? I was pregnant. I brought Roqui home. The next thing I knew you were knocked up. And the next thing was, you hauled Roqui off to the altar, or rather the county clerk. How was I supposed to feel?”

  “Like it was a lifetime ago. And not really my choice. And the best break you ever got. Anyway”—Leeja cocked her head rakishly at Red and slapped his behind—“here’s your big chance to waltz off with my hea
rtthrob.”

  24

  TELL THE TRUTH

  Don’t look at a falling star unless you blow at it. You’ll have bad luck.

  —Navajo saying

  Zahnie and Red walked out past everybody and everything to nowhere in particular. In a few minutes they climbed a red-rock outcropping and sat in the shade of a cedar tree. The sun was setting, but he wasn’t paying attention to how splendid the scene was or wasn’t. He felt his face was burning red. He tried starting things. “You first.”

  “Okay.” She looked him straight and hard in the eyes. “I brought Roqui home from college, he seduced Leeja, I got mad and ran back to Albuquerque, and they stayed at Mythic Valley. Their first, Sallyfene, was born three months after my son, Damon. That’s why I keep a little distance from them.” More challenging eyes. “Now you tell me everything.” She paused. “On the other hand, why should you?”

  Red thought before he spoke. “You’re becoming a real friend, maybe more. I’m getting attached to you. So I tell you, or I lose you.”

  * * *

  Red let his mind slide back to the dream. He saw himself plunge into the bay as one man and come out another. When he felt it to his toes, he told her about it.

  “A couple of months ago, I was half-famous and half-rich, and dead, dead inside.”

  He couldn’t go on. He let his eyes roam across Mythic Valley, to a horizon far from Zahnie. His story turned paranormal now. He told her of the many nights of the same dream. He spoke of the baptism of his old self and the emergence of the new. “Weird. I climbed out naked and invisible. And wondered, Am I alive or dead?

  “When they hauled the car up, the driver’s seat was empty. The new man was sitting right on the bank, exposed and unseen.

  “So. I saw a way out. An invisible man could walk away and start over. But, and this was real strong, if I walked away, I’d have to go naked. No band, no money, no nothing.”

  He started to reach for her hand and pulled back.

  He thought maybe she’d say it, but she just looked into him.

  He stumbled onward. “I guess it’s every man’s fantasy, in a way. Death and resurrection. Burn the old life on a pyre, catch the energy as it rises up, become a new man.”